It's been a long, lonely road.

First time ever in thirty-five years, I actually managed to stay focused, produced the kind of techniques I've been training and practising for hours and hours and played the kind of all-court attacking game I believed I could play. And won. Just three letters W-O-N but getting here's been a long and lonely road because no one - not even my own family - ever believed I could, and everybody said I'd always fail because I'm fat, slow and a loser who got nervous and froze up on the court.

It's easy to say that I never stopped believing in myself but the truth is I did, once long ago and gave up tennis for thirty years, because I just got so tired of fighting my own mind and body day in and day out without any kind of end or goal in sight. It hurt, too, that my brother and sister had inherited the wonderful coordination and sports talent that marks my family while all I got was, to quote a certain member of my family, "the darkest genes."

And then when I started playing again, just to get fit and burn fat at first, it was a bit like a horror movie reprise because everything I couldn't do - like stay focused on the points - or did wrong all those years ago, I just went on doing wrong and still couldn't do even with a helluva lot of gray hair on my head. So today, after three years of trying to play a game everyone said I couldn't, I did.

Now, if only I could lose 15lbs and get much fitter and faster on my feet...